Tangled Threads & Shifting Sands
by 2BeRini
Summary: A series of one-shots that takes place in the "Dying is Easy" AU. (On Hiatus)
1. A Weighty Decision

**Brief Lesson:** _M.O.M. Classification: XXXX_ \- The **Unicorn** is a white, equine creature with a single horn on its forehead. They are fully grown at about seven years old, at which at this age they turn a shade of pure white that is so bright that it makes freshly fallen snow look gray in comparison. Their hooves are golden, (remaining so from their gold stage, the first two years of their life), and their blood is silver-blue in color and shines under the moonlight. Unicorns prefer a woman's touch, but the young ones are more trusting and do not mind men as much. Unicorns are also so fleet-of-hoof that they can rarely be caught by humans. (Courtesy: Harry Potter Wikia)

 **Task Chosen:** Write about something/someone pure.

 **Prompts Used:** (word) snow;Gringotts Prompts Bank [Vocabulary] Figures of Speech - change of heart, the ball is in your court, bite the bullet, deafening silence [Descriptors] Instead of Said – states, concedes

* * *

 **A Weighty Decision**

 **1)**

As she stands over her newborn son's crib as he sleeps, Eileen Snape née Prince marvels over him, this son of hers, her little Prince. She didn't have a difficult pregnancy, by-passing the usual symptoms of swollen ankles and morning sickness. However, the actual delivery of her baby is anything but easy. Eileen delivers prematurely, the cause being a violent push down a short flight of stairs by her husband during one of his drunken rages.

The delivery of her son is difficult for Eileen and it seems like he will not take his first breath outside of her womb, yet he proves otherwise. Her pride and joy, Severus Prince Snape is born, kicking, screaming and with a scowl on his face, like he already finds the world he has been born into disagreeable, obnoxious and just overall offensive.

As she looks down upon him as he suckles her breast, Eileen decides she has never seen a more beautiful face.

 **2)**

Three days later, Tobias appears in the hospital room, flowers in one hand and a soccer ball under his arm. As his wife gazes upon him her suspicion of him obvious, Tobias squirms nervously and clears his throat (an obvious delay tactic) before speaking.

"The nurse told me that the doctors thought that the baby was going to die," he states faintly, a contrite expression on his face.

His voice fades and an uncomfortable silence and the only sounds he can hear are the faint background noises of the beep and hiss of the machines. Tobias is unnerved by the cool look upon Eileen's face and asks –

"Are you upset?"

The only response Eileen can give is to scream, which prompts the nurse to usher Tobias out of the room as she berates him for causing her patient undue stress as she recovers.

 **3)**

Tobias returns the next day and after assuring the nurse on duty that he will not be any trouble, he visits once more to make an appeal.

"I apologize. My attack against you was unnecessary. It was a mistake. I really do love you and I want to start again, build our family together, make our house a home. The ball is in your court," he says in conclusion, trying to convince Eileen of his sincerity.

Eileen wants to believe him and his change of heart despite her building anxiety. Yet she can't quite shake the terrible visions of her baby as a young child, abused both verbally and mentally by the man he should feel safest around. She sees him as an adolescent being bullied by his classmates in the halls she recognizes as belonging to Hogwarts. Eileen sees her son as adult, visions of him suffering in a two wars that she doesn't survive to see. As she bites the bullet, Eileen let her love for her son be the ultimate reason for her answer.

"We can't be together."

There's a deafening silence as Tobias processes Eileen's words yet the explosion she anticipates does not come.

"Although I don't agree or approve of your decision, I respect your right to make it," he concedes.

Tobias leaves the room and all Eileen can feel is the relief one feels once a weighty decision finally made.

 **4)**

Eileen allows herself a little time to grieve.

She mourns the loss of the man she married, the man she thought who would be her partner for life. Eileen wants to fall apart but knows that she can't dwell on the negative when she has a new life that is depending on her. So when she is finally released from the hospital, she turns her face upwards toward the weak winter sunshine with a hopeful spirit.

Eileen carefully walks through the snow on the sidewalk, mindful of the precious cargo she carries in her arms. Fortunately, luck shines upon her when a couple with a daughter and another child on the way offers her a ride home. Glad to be out of the cold, she accepts.

During the car ride to their destination, the two mothers chat Eileen soaks up all the advice given to her, determined to avoid the fate her visions foretells. The first step was ending her abusive relationship. The next step, however, will be harder to take. However, she is reassured by her red-haired companion that the course of action she has decided upon is the right one.

"No matter how we depart, our parents will always welcome us home."

 **5)**

When she arrives at the house she shares with her husband, she immediately can tell that he is currently not in the residence. Wanting to be gone before Tobias comes back; Eileen packs everything of value that she own, muggle and wizarding items.

Tobias hears a faint whoosh as he walks into the house and he senses a change. The walls seem dingier, the air staler and the overall atmosphere is grimmer.

' _It's like all the magic has been sucked away,'_ he thinks to himself.

As he enters the kitchen, a golden glint on the table catches his eyes and when he comes closer to inspect it, his worse fears are confirmed.

Sitting on the table is Eileen's wedding ring.

 **6)**

She stands in front of the gates that guard her childhood home apprehensively.

Eileen wants to immerse herself in the pure magic that surrounds the Prince Family estate, but she is afraid that it will reject her. So she stands, gathering her courage, as she rocks the fussy baby that is her son. The clearing of a throat disrupts the mental argument Eileen is having with herself on whether she's going to stay or go and attempt to rent a room in at the Leaky Caldron.

"Come, child," a voice that Eileen hasn't heard in a long, long time demands. "We have been waiting for you."

Eileen's eyes fly up from her son's face to look upon the face that shares the same fathomless onyx orbs.

"Daddy," she whispers and he opens his arms and Eileen runs willingly into his embrace.

"Daddy, Daddy, I love you and I've missed you so very much," she sobs and her cries are joined by Severus' own as he is not pleased with all at being squished in the middle as father and daughter reunite.

"May I," Eileen's father asks and when she nods her permission, Augustus Prince holds his grandson for the very first time.

Augustus doesn't relinquish his hold upon the baby but instead, calls one of the many house elves on the estate to take his daughter's belongings and to inform the mistress of the house that her daughter has returned.

' _Orchid was right,_ ' Eileen thinks to herself. ' _My parents never stopped looking for me._ '


	2. What Could Have Been

**Divination Brief Lesson:** Clairvoyance, which literally means "Clear Vision," is the ability to gain telepathic information about an object, person, location or physical event, through means other than the known human senses. It is often called 'ESP', meaning Extrasensory Perception.

 **Task:** For this task, I would like you to write about a character **besides** Cassandra or Sybil Trelawney 'seeing' something. They must have some kind of vision, premonition, or an episode of clairvoyance in the story.

* * *

 **What Could Have Been**

 **(Companion piece to "A Weighty Decision")**

* * *

 **1)**

She doesn't know what causes these dreams - all she knows that when she carried Petunia, she slept well throughout her pregnancy. However, the same cannot be said of her current one.

She dreams of a little girl with claret-colored hair that she herself and her maternal grandmother shares and her husband's emerald eyes and whenever she cradles her stomach, she feels a light buzz, a tingling sensation that reminds her of the days she spent with her grandmother in Scotland when she was a child.

"This little girl will be special, I just know it," she tells her husband as they lie in bed, her forehead touching his.

"How do you know that the baby you're carrying is a girl? Isn't it a bit early on to know that," he quips playfully.

"I see her in my dreams, Liam," Orchid shares softly as she looks directly into her husband's eyes.

"I believe you," he answers just as softly, his absolute belief in her resonating in his voice.

 **2)**

The first time she sees her, they are at the grocers.

Orchid feels both a wave of pity and protectiveness towards the tall, slim woman with hair the color of a raven's wing. When she first glanced at the woman, she was taken aback at what she saw. In that brief moment, the woman looked much older, bitter and defeated. Once the vision clears, what she sees is much different, yet the same. The woman is younger, yet she can see an aura of despair and the beginnings of the bitterness that the vision of the older version of the woman in front of her showed.

The woman's shoulder brushes hers as the woman walks by her and Orchid feels a jolt and then her eyes widen as another vision overcomes her.

There's a little boy with the same raven colored hair as his mother on her doorstep and his fathomless dark brown eyes look too old and too sad for a boy his age. However, his eyes gain a spark when he sees her daughter rushing down the stairs, a spark that is echoed in emerald eyes.

"See you later, Mom," her voice sweetly says and she replies,

"Don't be late for dinner, Li-,"

The vision is interrupted before she can hear her little girl's name by the woman apologizing for bumping into her and before Orchid can respond, she is gone.

She has a feeling that they will meet again.

 **3)**

Since bumping shoulders with the woman with the raven colored hair, the frequency of her visions (which she grudgingly accepts as part of her life) increases.

Some of the visions are happy ones, of two little girls, one with hair the color of corn silk, the other with hair the color of crackling flames, laughing as they swing higher and higher on a swing set. Some of them are melancholy, the vision of the raven haired boy with eyes too old for a face so young sitting at her table for dinner and Orchid feels her heart ache and fill with love all at once as she sneaks a second helping of everything, for he is much too thin and she strongly suspects he doesn't eat much at home.

She even sees a baby boy with a lightning bolt shaped scar upon his forehead, messy black hair and the same emerald green eyes she sees every day when she looks upon her husband being left in a basket on a doorstep. It is this vision that fills her with such a profound sadness that she cries every time she remembers it.

As she progresses further along in her pregnancy, Orchid tells her unborn daughter stories that her grandmother told her, about King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table and Merlin. She tells stories about being descendants of a woman named Charlotte, and how her rumored magical powers have manifested in the women of their line throughout the centuries.

"I think it's true," she whispers as she rubs her stomach and ponders the many peculiar things that have surrounded her grandmother, aunt, and mother. "I think it's true and you, my sweet one, will be even more than even I think is possible."

 **4)**

She's restless and as much as she wants to blame it on the fact she is due to deliver in less than a month's time, Orchid knows that it's more than pre-delivery jitters.

Liam recognizes that his wife is becoming restless so he suggests that they go for a drive, just the two of them. After getting one of the neighbors to watch Petunia (who is becoming brattier as the delivery date looms closer), Liam helps his wife into the car.

Their impromptu date is a good one and as they drive towards home, he has the urge to make a detour.

"Liam, where are you going?"

"Just had the urge to drive by the hospital, sweetheart," he answers and Orchid doesn't question it. For some unexplainable reason, his decision to do so feels right.

It is lightly snowing when she sees a familiar figure carefully walking through the snow that is on the sidewalk and Orchid urgently asks Liam to stop the car as she rolls down the window. Once she gains the woman's (who introduces herself as Eileen) attention, she offers her a ride home, which she gladly accepts.

Orchid sits in the back seat with Eileen and her newborn baby and when Eileen loosens the blankets she has tucked securely around his face to prevent the cold air from reaching him she uncovers her son's face. Orchid gasps when she sees the slumbering baby in the carrier because she knows without a doubt that the baby boy she sees is the same little boy she has seen in her vision.

"His name is Severus," Eileen shares, "for even when he was minutes old he had such a serious and stern face."

Eileen's voice fades into the background as Orchid look at the sleeping baby and Rose sees him playing with her younger daughter, going to school with her younger daughter, loving her daughter from afar, dying because of the love he felt for her daughter. Orchid abruptly pulls out of the vision and asks –

"When you return home, will you be staying there?"

"No, I shall return to my father's house if he will have me," Eileen answers and a sudden rush of relief overcomes her.

"No matter how we depart, our parents will always welcome us home," Orchid shares as she softly strokes Severus' cheek with her thumb.

 **5)**

A few years pass before Orchid and Liam see Eileen again, although the two women exchange letters after Rose received a thank you card and a gift basket (Orchid wondered how Eileen knew) full of baby items for a girl. Her favorite gift was a beautiful spring green dress with matching bonnet, both that boasted a hand embroidered lily motif.

It is a warm spring day and Orchid is in her garden planting flowers with Petunia (who dropped the bratty attitude once she realized that her parents had enough love for her and the new baby) and Lily when it happens.

"Orchid, Orchid Evans," a voice questions and although she hasn't heard the voice in years, Orchid knows who it is.

"Eileen," she exclaims and she gets up from the ground and hugs her, noticing how much happier the woman seems.

"And this," she whispers, kneeling so she can be at eye level with the young boy who stands behind his mother shyly, "must be Severus."

"Hi, Mrs. Evans," he intones softly as he seriously holds out his hand so Orchid can shake it.

"Oh, there will be no shaking of hands or you calling me 'Mrs. Evans.' I'm Aunt Orchid to you," she says and she holds her arms out, signaling for a hug. Severus looks back at his mother for approval and at her slight nod; Severus walks forward, leans into Orchid and gives her a hug.

The contact brings the final vision Orchid will have in her lifetime and it is one full of happiness. She sees Petunia marrying a kind man and pursuing her passion for art. She sees Lily flying on a broomstick and Severus chasing after her merrily. Orchid sees some bumps in the road, feels a sense of foreboding, but she senses that the troubled times will not last long and more importantly, will not linger.

As Severus ends the hug and stands beside his mother, Orchid introduces her daughters to Eileen and Severus and is amazed at the literal spark that forms between Lily and Severus as they shake hands most seriously.

Orchid and Eileen share a look that communicates that the just the two of them will be sharing tea soon. In the meantime, Orchid invites Eileen and Severus into her home for a light afternoon snack and as the three children chatter away at the kitchen table, Orchid is relieved that the future she saw is a happy one, for it is immensely better for what could have been.


End file.
